Cy Goldman’s murder is disclosed through Juan’s account of a confrontation over candlesticks he regarded as the property of his great-aunt’s convent. Juan presents the killing as an act of restitution, while the circumstances he recounts show that he deliberately sought a private encounter with Goldman.

Causes and Background

Juan says he decided to reclaim the candlesticks after learning that Goldman had bought them from the convent, which needed repairs, and had dismissed the sisters’ ability to recognize the value of their possessions. He was also angered by Goldman’s account of buying a chapel in Spain to rebuild as a bathhouse. After dinner, Juan pretended to go to bed, then waited behind curtains in a library alcove until the other men had left and Goldman was alone. When Goldman said he would put the candlesticks in their box and safe, Juan objected that he had come on the sisters’ behalf to take back their property. Goldman insisted that the sale made them his. Juan then struck him once with a candlestick; afterward, appalled by what he had done, he hid in a hallway niche and slipped away when the crash brought others running.

Confession and Consequences

After recounting the killing, Juan says he feels no remorse and regards it as vengeance for his people and country. The sheriff answers by invoking the gas chamber, making the legal consequence of Juan’s confession explicit; Juan rejects the threat and turns his defiance on the sheriff as well. His account therefore ends not with an appeal for understanding but with his continued insistence that his cause justifies what he did.

The Staged Encounter

Juan’s account adds a final detail to his deception: he slammed the front door to make it seem that he had left, then entered the library ahead of the others and waited in an alcove behind the curtains. Goldman greeted him without suspicion and offered him brandy and a cigar while preparing to put the candlesticks away. After the blow, Juan dropped the candlestick and concealed himself behind a statue in a hallway niche; when the noise drew everyone away, he used the confusion to leave and return to bed.

The Candlesticks as Contested Heritage

The dispute turns on two incompatible measures of value. The convent had sold the candlesticks to fund repairs, while Juan understood them as part of a religious and family inheritance: women in his family had entered the convent for generations. His account extends that conflict to an El Greco painting, sold for little because the sisters saw it as a Madonna and child rather than as a celebrated artwork, and to Goldman’s plan to rebuild a Spanish chapel as a bathhouse. These details make Juan’s appeal to restitution intelligible without settling its justice: the objects’ sacred and historical meaning is set against their sale and purchase, but Juan’s unilateral claim to recover them ends in murder.